Beck Quotes

Companies like Spotify, the new Apple service, and all the others are really going to have to pay artists more. And I think it's a matter of time; I think a lot of these companies and the individuals that are involved in them realize that as well. They know that artists are not getting what they should be getting.

If you're an artist, and you put out a record - most artists only have one or two hit records - that has 100 million streams, on certain services you only get paid on 75% of those streams. How's an artist going to live like that?

I imagine if Spotify becomes something that people are willing to pay for, then I'm sure iTunes will just create their own service, and they're actually fair to artists.

I suppose Spotify is a good thing. The ads are quite annoying, but a lot of people seem to like it and use it. I don't myself, but it seems like a good idea, and the labels are getting a huge amount of money off it, but the artists aren't, so that must be good for them... but not us.

If I had to live on record sales, I'd be pushing up the daisies.

If you get 100 million streams on a song and you're only being paid on 20 percent, the check's not going to look good. The money's not going to look fair.

There's definitely some sort of dissent brewing between record labels, publishing companies and artists [about the compensation they get from streaming services] Spotify is returning a HUGE amount of money [to the record labels]. If we continue growing at our current rate in terms of subscriptions and downloads, we'll overtake iTunes in terms of contributions to the recorded music business in under two years.

There's a lot of artists whose contracts are written in such a way that they do not get paid for what's happening on streaming services.

Streaming is a really big market for me. We've been doing great in the streaming market, so it's not something I want to alienate at all. Streaming counts now. They're treating artists the way we deserve to be treated.

The larger streaming grows, the less money there will be to get the music out there, which, to me, is the sad part.

I just have to sell enough records to continue financing making more records.

A chart that weighs some ad-supported streams the same as a pay stream... encourages artists to promote free tiers to have a No. 1 record. That's great for the tech companies, but not for artists.

Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists.

I think there is something to be said for churning things out. Motown churned out hits and there is nothing wrong with that.

It's a long process transitioning from indie to mainstream, and it's not that easy because it's a different environment when you are in the indie industry.

I'm a fan of music documentaries and I always love seeing what goes on behind the scenes. In kind of the new era of record companies and record releases and that sort of thing, there has to be way more content for the audience.

Jive is a good label, but they're R&B'ed out.

If you look at something like Spotify, many record labels are investors in the company. So from that standpoint, the money is all going back into the labels.

We worked with Max Martin's team, MXM, who are the best in the business as well. We worked with Stargate, which was phenomenal, and Victoria Monet.

I was busy enough when I was just a musician. I wasn't making all that much money but I was busy.

If music is to continue to support the livelihoods of artists, it cannot be taken without the permission of artists.

But it's hard to support yourself from music when nobody knows you.

I grew up carrying crates of records for Will Smith and those guys.

I think that the music industry is such an interesting place, and there are so many situations that people don't know about.

'Magic' is a word that's too often misused in the record industry.